


Daylight

by withered



Series: Tinker and Spy [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Banter, M/M, Snark, their whole relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25932538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: "I sincerely hope you're still applying pressure to the wound and not just lying there like a ragdoll just to piss me off." Somehow, even concerned, Q sounds disapproving."My god, but you're stroppy," Bond complains. "Can't you just let me die in peace?"
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: Tinker and Spy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117562
Comments: 26
Kudos: 287





	Daylight

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine living in 2020 and deciding to write 00Q lol the audacity.

Q is a stubborn little shit.

Even in the face of the most impossible and hopeless of circumstances, Q is as unrelenting and persistent as ever. It's a constant that Bond, and the rest of the Double-Os have come to rely upon in a field that doesn't allow for such a thing at all. He'd made them all a promise that while he was at the helm, he would always bring them home, and his record thus far has proven that he refuses to be a liar.

He would do everything to ensure his agents had everything they needed, every weapon and advantage that Q could pull out of a hat, he would, and did.

Of course, he could only do so much on his end, and he can't guarantee their lives in the precarious situations the missions demand. Their deaths, however, Q could.

No matter what, he wouldn't let an agent die alone. He was responsible for them from beginning to end, and regardless of how grisly, Q would be there.

It doesn't happen often, thankfully, but even one time is too much. Since the installment of the new quartermaster, they've lost two.

Q refuses to be moved.

The Double-Os are used to being feared, but they are not used to being cared for; constantly at the receiving end of a compassion that's oft forgotten in favour of the price to be paid for the greater good, the very concept of anyone caring for them simply because their lives are important seems an afterthought.

The reminder pokes at the softer parts of them, the bits that have been scaled over with trauma and poor coping mechanisms, that if nothing and no one else, they have Q. Q will be there, and he will bring them home.

It's a bittersweet acknowledgment, is the general consensus. A relief in some way to be treated, at their most vulnerable, as human first and foremost.

Bond lives to be an outlier, even in opinion.

Maybe it's because he's too old and too bitter, but Bond doesn't think it matters, a body's just a body, and there's no point in having someone there to listen to him die.

He's used to being alone, and it's not like he has a family to grieve him. Anything to commemorate his service is really something for other people anyway.

Bond's quite convinced that Q's sentimentally will burn him out far quicker than any Double-O lifespan will, barring Bond's own reputation. With his penchant for resurrection, his case is an exception to the rule that the quartermaster can't conceivably aspire to, not with the very nature of the job.

It's a shame, really. Q's brilliance dimmed in that way by the darkness of morality, the shadows of death, would be a tragedy onto itself.

"Careful," the boffin drawls, "I'll start to think you like me, Bond."

His smirk doesn't reach his eyes. "Perish the thought." Then, "And while you're at it, piss off."

"Shan't," is the bored reply, "I made you a promise."

"I don't want it."

With a tsk, Q says, "Well, that's terribly unfortunate." Like they're talking about a poor turn of the weather or a spot of bad luck, not the fact that Bond is probably going to bleed out.

Not that Q, in his limited capacity is going to allow that. "ETA fifteen minutes."

"I don't have that time."

"You're such a drama queen," is the scoffed response, and if not for the tremor along the edges and the sharp hysteria to the words, Bond could almost believe it's just another mission. Another situation he's going to escape by the scrap of his teeth except. Well.

"I sincerely hope you're still applying pressure to the wound and not just lying there like a ragdoll just to piss me off." Somehow, even concerned, Q sounds disapproving.

"My god, but you're stroppy," Bond complains. "Can't you just let me die in peace?"

"If I actually believed you wanted that, I would." And before Bond can grimace about something else besides the pain in his side, Q says, "Medvac team, seven minutes."

"I don't know why you do this to yourself, you have enough nightmares."

Dryly, Q says, "Know the state of my sleep, do you?"

"Don't have to, I was there when we lost Fatima." The former Double-O-Four's death was slow, her every bloody gurgle accounted for through the speakers. Rumor was that Q had stayed on the line for all of it. Bond could believe it, he'd only arrived to witness the last two minutes of the mission, and hardened as he was, those two minutes were awful enough to make even him twitchy.

If he remembers correctly, Q hadn't left MI6 for three days after, citing the need to oversee the return of Fatima's remains. He wore the bags beneath his eyes for at least two weeks, and had a noticeable tremble in his fingers for another week more.

Bond's only grateful he's going to go by bullet wound and not poison. For Q, at least it'll be a relatively quick, relatively painless death to bear, if Q would allow him the courtesy.

"You've probably got a concussion too," Q notes. "Don't sleep, for the love of God."

As it stands, whenever Bond feels the telltale lightheadedness, the beckoning of the dark, Q is snapping, "Stay awake, Double-O-Seven, do you hear me?"

And Bond had bitched and moaned and complained every single time, aware, however distantly, that this is how Q intends to keep him from death: by annoying him from it. If anyone would succeed, it would be the same cheeky little shit who likened Bond to a big bloody ship.

The memory of it comes to him in the rapid flutter of his lids, the National Gallery, the bench, that blasted painting.

He'd felt worn to the bone, still a little drunk from too many nights trying to keep the nightmares away, and the young man coming to sit beside him only made the years cling a little harder. Bond remembered thinking a little distantly, what it would've been like had he been something he wasn't when they'd met then.

A little less weary. But old, regardless, as Q would likely point out.

Whether it would be a point of contention, even then, would probably rely on whether Bond would've pointed out Q's spots or not.

It's a silly thing to contemplate because they both know he would.

Because then he'd say something else. About how uncommon Q's eyes were. How elfin the features. How delicate and delicious the lips.

All forward, awful things Q would either scoff at or tease him for, all while attempting to hide the blush of colour at his ears, his neck. Later, he'd discover whether it warmed Q's chest even as it tightened his nipples, and what it would take to get the head of his cock in the same state.

But that was for later. Always for later.

The inevitability of time.

The thought makes him smile despite himself, even as he interrupts Q's tirade to say, quieter than he means to, "I'm very tired Q."

And just as Bond's tone has changed, so too does Q's, "I know. I know." Then, almost as an afterthought, "Medvac team closing in on your position."

His head pounds. He coughs blood. Through his teeth he says a little breathlessly, "I don't want you to hear me die." _It's_ _not worth it,_ he wants to add, but he shivers instead.

Q's reply is light, stubborn, "Then you best not die on me then."

"Did Fatima tell you her regrets before she --" He's cut off with a warning of his name that he ignores because, "Because I have too many, and I don't want those to be the last thing I think about."

"Then what?" Q spits to ask, frustration brightening the polish of his accent to gleaming sharpness.

Bond wonders if the man's voice always sounds like that. Whether he's softer beneath the glow of the street lamps at the end of a work day. Looser after the cigarette he's been craving after an evening at the pub. Pliant and content in the spent sheets, gaze dazed and dreamy as his smile.

Bond wonders.

"Bond?"

"You never did make my exploding pen."

There's a huff of a laugh, reluctant, disbelieving. "I thought you weren't going to think about your regrets."

"That's yours not mine. I got an exploding watch, ta."

Again, that laugh. 

"You knew better. The watch was better."

"A personal statement," he concludes, and Bond can imagine the slight lift of his mouth, the smile he's always hiding because he's fond even though they're all aware that their quartermaster cares far too much, admitting he likes them too seems a step too far for him.

Bond doesn't hold it against him. Q protects himself how he can.

He swallows. "And that beast of a car," Bond continues, "god, what a beauty she was."

"Yes," is Q's droll reply, "a pity about where you parked her."

And Bond would laugh except the last time Q had seen the car, Bond had been driving it off into the sun set with somebody else.

And he didn't want to speak of regrets, but. "I wish it had been you."

There's a pause, and Bond thinks he may have lost him. Bond thinks it must be the blood lost rather than a connectivity issue, but honestly, it's always something.

"Bond --"

"Wishes aren't regrets," is the returning volley to an argument Q hadn't even put together yet.

Q gets back at him though, always one for the last word,  "They are if you'd have asked me. I'd have said yes."

Bond had always thought he'd die in a blaze of glory, to gunfire, and hell lapping at his heels. He doesn't think he minds going like this instead.

He closes his eyes; makes out the tapping of Q's fingers on the keys, like rain pitter pattering on the sidewalk through his earwig. It's gentle and warm. It feels like coming home.

And then, it is.

The pattering gets less soothing, becomes beeping instead. It's too bright. Hell, heaven, purgatory, it's too bloody bright.

He feels cold but only by comparison to the hand in his, and Q's warm voice telling him, "You really are terribly dramatic, aren't you, Bond?"

And he would regret it. Pretend it was only the heat of the moment, but well. Bond's had many of those.

He squeezes his fingers, Q squeezes back. And while Bond could've pulled away after that, an acknowledgement of the moment and the moment having passed, he doesn't take it back.

Tone softening and lightening by turns, Q asks, "Are you going to ask me this time?"

"I would, darling," Bond replies, relishing Q's indignant splutter at the term of endearment, "but I haven't a car to drive us away in."

He huffs an amused breath, says, "No matter. You aren't leaving here for awhile yet." Q proceeds to rattle off his injuries, an extensive list that's impressive even by Bond's standards though not enough to warrant further attention beyond asking, "Will you?"

Momentarily distracted by the interruption, Q hums, "Hmm?"

"Leave," Bond says, "Will you?"

He shifts, forcibly nonchalant. Q runs his thumb over Bond's knuckles, a fleeting movement, a withdrawal he doesn't see all the way through not least because Bond's too weak to keep him, and Q's too weak to pull away entirely. "Is that what you want?"

"That's not what I asked." Though he's thought it. With the wrong people, perhaps, but let it be known that for all of Bond's deficiencies, he's fully aware of his failures as a partner. His job being the root of them all. They'd take it.

Anyone else would. Anyone else did.

When Q doesn't reply, Bond tangles their fingers back together. "We can do it, if you want."

"Leave, together?"

"I know you don't like flying, but we can always sail. And there's always a long drive, if you'd be a dear and see to our getaway car," and he'd flutter his lashes if he thinks it would help, but Q just looks a little lost, a little helpless.

"Bond," comes the whisper, and the accent is softer, not as crisp. He finds he likes it.

"That way, at least you won't have to listen to me die," it's certainly the least selfish reason he's come to for leaving the service.

But Q says, "That doesn't mean I'd prefer to see it," and it's amazing really, how easy it is to decide that Bond's offered the out to the right person. And if he'd ever been in any doubt, Q says, "I'd see you to your retirement, Bond. And not a moment before then, if that's what you want."

"And what of you? You'd be content for death to be the third in our relationship?"

"It's the only other partner I'd allow besides yourself," is his answer.

"Cheeky little shit," he accuses fondly.

"I'll always bring you home, no matter what," Q tells him with another squeeze of his hand, and for all the gravity in that sentiment, the tenderness yawns like an ache.

"I know," Bond replies. Then, because it needs to be said, "I'll always come back to you."

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [Be a bad influence](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com)


End file.
